This invention relates to liquid chromatographic methods and apparatuses.
Inexpensive liquid chromatographic apparatuses have been developed and are in use, particularly for preparatory chromatography where the emphasis is on quickly obtaining relatively large samples at low cost. Such systems generally include at least one solvent reservoir, a pump, a controller, a chromatographic column, a collector and usually a detector. Commonly, provision is made for a gradient to be developed and such gradient systems require at least two solvent reservoirs and some mechanism for mixing the solvent from each of the two reservoirs together to form a gradient for application to the column.
The prior art apparatuses have a disadvantage in that they are not as inexpensive as desired or require a longer period of time than desired for the separation.